Thoughts on Life, Love, Politics, Hypocrisy and Coming Out in Mid-Life

Friday, April 13, 2018

Elderly White Voters Are Starting to Turn on the GOP

With all of the bad news that has racked the GOP - losing special elections, record numbers of Republicans opt ing to retire, almost unprecedented Democrat energy, and, of course, the Trump/Pence shitshow - polls suggest that a new menace is forming: defections of elderly whites repelled by the GOP threats to access to health care and the Trump/GOP tax cuts. True, poor whites more prone to fall for GOP racism and/or pandering to Christian extremism are stay true to the GOP, but educated aging whites seem to belatedly coming to the realization that the GOP is working against their interests - actually for years now - and poses a threat to their future and retirement years. A piece in New York Magazine looks at this new defection from the GOP. Here are highlights:

One of the many odd features of American politics, circa 2018, is that
the
primary beneficiaries of our nation’s social safety net are also
the core supporters of the party that wants to slash it. No age group derives a
bigger benefit from our welfare state than America’s elderly; but no cohort is
as susceptible to the cultural paranoia and racial resentment that sustain the
modern right, either. Thus, conservatives can’t shrink “big government” without
retaining the allegiance of the voters who stand to lose most from the
erosion of social insurance.

The tensions inherent to this arrangement grew conspicuous
during last year’s fight over Obamacare repeal — when congressional Republicans
tried to pass a health-care bill that would have drastically
increased the cost of health insurancefor older, working-class voters in
rural America (a core GOP constituency) while dramatically lowering premiums
for 20-something city-dwellers (an overwhelmingly Democratic demographic). Many
purple-district Republicans voted for the bill, anyway, effectively betting
that it was more politically hazardous to thwart the ideological goals of their
big-dollar donors, than to betray the material interests of their gray-haired
voters.

This may have been costly mistake.

According to
polling from Reuters/Ipsos,
the percentage of college-educated white voters who say “health care” is their
top issue rose from 8 percent in 2016 to 21 percent today; over that same
period, the demographic went from favoring a Republican Congress by ten points,
to backing a Democratic one by two.

[T]he
Ryan agenda does seem to have played a role in alienating college-educated
white Republicans, whose educational backgrounds already rendered them a
less-than-ideal audience for Trump’s anti-intellectual shtick.

John Camm has
been a Republican since the Nixon Administration, but the 63-year-old Tucson
accountant says he will likely support a Democrat for Congress in November. He
is splitting with his party over access to health insurance as well as its
recent overhaul of the nation’s income tax system. He also supports gun control
measures that the party has rejected.

“I’m a moderate
Republican, and yet my party has run away from that,” Camm said. “So give me a
moderate Democrat.”

… Voters between
the ages of 60 and 65 are particularly worried about healthcare, said Brigid
Harrison, a political scientist at Montclair State University in New Jersey,
because they are paying ever higher private health insurance premiums and are
not yet eligible for Medicare.

Republicans
have sought consolation in the fact that core Democratic constituencies (like
nonwhite and younger voters) have historically failed to turn out for midterms
in high numbers. But the Democrats’ turnout advantage in the past year’s
special elections put a dent in that hope — and the leftward lurch of elderly
whites all but eviscerates it. Older, college-educated whites are among the
most reliable voters in the nation.

Republicans were already at risk of losing the House due to shifts in
turnout patterns, alone — but if those shifts are accompanied by significant
defections among reliable GOP constituencies, the party could suffer
historic losses up and down the ballot.

“The real core for the Republicans is white, older white,
and if they’re losing ground there, they’re going to have a tsunami,” political
scientist Larry Sabato told Reuters. “If that continues to November, they’re
toast.”

Remarkably,
even as Republicans have lost ground with this key demographic — and Democratic
candidates have won improbable
special election victories while painting their Republican opponents as
enemies of Medicare and Social Security — Paul Ryan has persisted in calling
for sweeping cuts to entitlement spending.

Ryan and his reverse Robin Hood agenda may yet prove to be the death of the GOP. Add in revulsion toward Trump, and it could be a perfect storm for the GOP's annihilation.

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
In the career/professional realm, I am affiliated with Caplan & Associates PC where I practice in the areas of real estate, estate planning (Wills, Trusts, Advanced Medical Directives, Financial Powers of Attorney, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney); business law and commercial transactions; formation of corporations and limited liability companies and legal services to the gay, lesbian and transgender community, including birth certificate amendment.

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